neil morse

Matt, here's an idea. At least start it up and see how it runs. Given the modifications that others have made to the bypass valve -- essentially eliminating it and substituting a core plug with a hole in it -- your little boo-boo might not make any difference at all in how well your cooling system works.

Thanks for the clarification -- I thought my memory was playing tricks on me. I wish you the best of luck with the rear main seal -- unless it's really bad, it might be better just to live with it as Matt recommended.

Peter, as I recall the photos you posted of your car, the panels looked as though they already had been refinished. Is this not the case?

This is such a wonderful photo!

Great choice on the tires, Keith! I'm so sick of seeing white walls on cars that never would have had them when they were new.

Same here on the number under the water pump. On my car, it matched the number on the block. With regard to the temperature gauge, I think you are certainly better off postponing the replacement of the factory gauge. I may be missing something, but from my own experience I would say that pulling the instrument panel and installing the new gauge is a monumental job compared to what you have done with the radiator and water pump. Getting that panel off and back on is by far the most difficult thing I have done with my car, and that was with the front seat out and the center chrome piece and radio removed. There is almost no room to work in there, and you will wish you had a crew of leprechauns to help you.

Don, your procedure is consistent with the '41 manual which says "The rod running from frame X-member to support mounting should be adjusted so that no tension is placed on rod." It also says (as the final step to adjusting all of the engine and transmission mounts), "Tighten rod in transmission support, being careful not to cause any 'push' or 'pull' tension in rod." On my car, I took the rod off and cleaned up the threads once we had removed the cross-member so that it could be easily adjusted if we needed to. When I put the rod back on the cross-member, I tried to put it right back where it had been. Apparently, I was successful (and we didn't change things too much by installing the new front and rear transmission mounts) because when we put that cross-member support back in the car, the attachment hole at the rear of the rod lined up perfectly with the hole in the X-member and the rod could be reattached without putting any tension on it. So I guess we didn't go exactly "by the book," but I think we ended up in the right place.

A few more photos -- it's probably not going to look this clean for long, so I thought I would post these.

Never mind -- I was going to post a pic but I see that Mike already took care of it.

A terrible engine. Henry's idea of just adding four cylinders to the standard Ford V-8 was a cheap way to come up with a V-12, but they are notoriously unreliable. I think Matt hit the nail on the head. It's too bad because the styling -- particularly on the earlier Continentals and Zephyrs -- is so great.

Another bullet-proof MoPar -- looks like a winner!

Thanks for the report, Konrad! I just logged into the forum to post this pic and my own report of the afternoon's events, but Konrad has summed it up so well I will just post the photo. It looks like just another photo of my Buick in the driveway, but it's not. It's a photo of my Buick in the driveway after a successful test drive during which I tried my best to get it to pop out of third gear and it just wouldn't do it! 😄 I'm a very happy camper and again want to thank my friends for all their help.

Thank you, Keith. I have a couple of thoughts. First, with regard to your transmission, the main thing I learned from the experience of working on the transmission in my car is that the "pop out of third" problem can occur when the front bearing being free to move forward, even just a tiny bit. It sounds like that could be what's happening in your car. That front bearing is a slip fit, and unless everything is properly in place that holds the bearing in position, it can slide forward causing the inner dogs on the third gear (in the very front of the case) to slip out. The bearing is normally held in place by the pressure from the throw-out bearing support pushing against it, with the large "snap ring" (really a spring washer) in between the throw-out bearing support and the front bearing. As you know, on my car the snap ring had been destroyed and had damaged the ball carriage of the bearing and the oil slinger, so the bearing was free to move forward. This was exacerbated by the use of RTV instead of a gasket and the poor alignment between the transmission and the bell housing. In a thread by @Nevadavic, Vic reports that the "pop out" problem on his '41 Roadmaster was caused by the fact that the snap ring was missing altogether. So even though you replaced the front bearing, you may have a problem with what is supposed to be holding it in place. Second, with regard to why my transmission parts survived so well despite the damaged bearing, what we actually found was that the bearing (although the ball carriage was damaged) was working fine. I think the "poor lube" problem was pretty minor -- transmission oil was leaking out the front of the case and into the bell housing area because the oil slinger had been destroyed, but as long as the car wasn't driven very much and the oil was topped off periodically, I don't think it suffered too much. And what Don originally thought was "coke" coating all the internal parts actually turned out to be more of a "varnish." Although he had never seen that before, others have reported that it's not uncommon in old transmissions. I don't know what causes it, but it may have to do with using the wrong kind of transmission oil. So I don't think there was a significant overheating problem with my transmission. So that's my little bit of "post-hoc" analysis now that we have completed the job. Good luck with the Dynaflow -- that must be quite a job!

Just to make this clear for anyone trying to follow along, the "southpaw" threads we are talking about are on the "keepers" that hold the coil springs onto the rear axle at the bottom of the coils. The threads are left-handed on both sides (to compensate for the "twisting" movement of the springs when they contract). On my car, we found that someone had apparently been unaware of this and had stripped out the threads on one side. He had then drilled it out to a larger diameter and substituted a right-hand nut and bolt. Don happened to have an extra "correct" left-hand keeper which he generously gave me, so my car is now back to the proper configuration. With regard to Konrad's sore arms, I will soon be posting a wrap up on this job with an account of what we learned that may help other people in the future. As I said at the beginning of the transmission job, I know that this may just be another day in the shop for many of you, but it never hurts to post what we've learned along the way that may be of some help to others.

Thank you for that piece of advice, I will definitely check that. And thanks for the reminder about the left-hand threads. As I have said many times to my automotive mentors and teachers, don't ever hesitate to tell me something, even if it seems obvious! 😄

I'm happy to report that we got the transmission back in the car this morning, and a shake-down cruise around the block revealed no problems. I have yet to give it the "acid test" of coasting down a long downgrade in third gear, but I am pretty certain we took care of the problem of it popping out of gear. I am extremely grateful to my friends Don, Konrad, and Tom for all the help and support! What a great hobby! Neil

Good eye on that 2-tone on the left! I agree with what you have said, but how about the tell-tale rear fender spears on the car parked on the left just ahead of the '47/'48 that you mention? Could it be a '41 Special or Century Sedanette? Also, the 2-tone scheme on the car driving away under the Malco sign has a very Buick-ish look to it.

Wow, very sharp car that looks like it might go for a very low price.

If you're talking about the photos I posted of the door on my '41, those holes are definitely stock. No speakers. And yes, the covers are missing. I had trouble deciphering Ken's post. I think his cat might have walked on the keyboard when he was typing. 😄

Hi Ben: I'm glad to hear you found your problem. We will be putting the transmission back in my car this coming Tuesday, the 25th. Watch this space.

Failure Mode As has been explained earlier, it's pretty clear that the problem with my transmission was caused by a faulty installation that resulted in the throw-out bearing support snap ring getting caught up between the bell housing and the transmission where it proceeded to chew up the front bearing and get broken into three pieces. Now that I've put the new support in place with the snap ring, a photo comparison shows more clearly than ever what happened. Here's a pic of what it looks like now with everything seated properly. Compare this with what we found when we removed the transmission. The impression in the RTV is like a fingerprint that shows that the snap ring was not seated correctly. It was situated in the outer recess instead of the inner recess, and you can clearly see from the impression that the ring was not fully compressed. I love this -- kind of like a crime scene investigation!

My car obviously has a different body than yours but I'm sure a lot of the hardware on the doors is the same. If you could be more specific about what you're looking for, I might have some photos that would be helpful to you.